Q: Cannot turn off personal hotspot
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Nov 12, 2015 3:34 PMby Meg St._Clair,LeeStav wrote:
I've just received a huge bill thanks to instant hotspot and my children connecting to my phone without my knowledge.
Whenever anyone is connected to your personal hotspot, there is a blue banner across the top of the screen that tells the number of connections. It's extremely annoying as it gets in the way of some screens. Did you not see it?
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Jan 5, 2016 12:22 PMby 00terp,This is a bad security and privacy issue. It doesn't appear to have anything to do with iCloud accounts. It looks like my phone is using Bluetooth to send out the hotspot signal, even though the hotspot setting is turned off on my phone. Case in point, I am at work right now, with bluetooth turned on, and all of my co-workers can also see my hotspot / device name (which displays as my first and last name) when they go to their wifi settings. They're not logged into their computers with my iCloud account, I assure you. The only thing we share in common, is that we're all connected to the same wifi network in the office. As soon as I turn off bluetooth, my device appears from view for them.
Regardless, if I have personal hotspot (or instant hotspot) turned off, then no one should be able to see my device. Some devices (like FitBits) require bluetooth connectivity to be on for syncing. But this instant hotspot feature will in turn expose us and potentially our identity to other people and devices around.
Apple needs to fix this.
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Jan 6, 2016 5:50 AMby Meg St._Clair,Just because your co-workers can see your SSID doesn't mean they can access your personal hotspot. They would need the password for that. If you don't want your name showing, change the phones name in Settings>General>About>Name. My, for example, just says "iPhone".
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Feb 6, 2016 7:31 AMby nicastm,FYI, I found out this issue by mistake when I received a notification from Verizon Wireless that I consumed 50% of my data plan just 7 days into the contract month. I looked into it further and found out that the Personal Hotspot was on for 2 hours one night what my wife was using her iPad to read at night. Apparently there was a power interruption for a while at night and the iPad connected with her iPhone Personal Hotspot and used 2.1GB of data during the night. I think this is a terrible design flaw from Apple and they should give us the ability to turn the Personal Hotspot completely instead of disabling your iCloud account.
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Feb 8, 2016 8:28 PMby TechAddict,This is crazy IMO. I've sent feedback to Apple:
"With instant hotspot anyone using my Mac legitimately can, if it is signed into iCloud, turn ON hotspot on my iPhone even though I have DELIBERATELY disabled it. Thus if I give someone my laptop to do something (maybe be kids or a friend) but they change the connection to hotspot it could activate the hotspot on my phone and unless I check my phone I would be unaware, at potentially serious cost!!
I should not have to sign out of iCloud, with all the grief that entails (what with disabling Find my Mac, not to mention all the problems with re-establishing keychain connections), just so I can give it to my kids or a friend to do something.
There should at LEAST be the option to:
turn off hotspot COMPLETELY for all devices (including those using the same iCloud account).
turn off but allow devices signed in on iCloud to connect
turn on
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Feb 9, 2016 2:39 AMby Lawrence Finch,nicastm wrote:
FYI, I found out this issue by mistake when I received a notification from Verizon Wireless that I consumed 50% of my data plan just 7 days into the contract month. I looked into it further and found out that the Personal Hotspot was on for 2 hours one night what my wife was using her iPad to read at night. Apparently there was a power interruption for a while at night and the iPad connected with her iPhone Personal Hotspot and used 2.1GB of data during the night. I think this is a terrible design flaw from Apple and they should give us the ability to turn the Personal Hotspot completely instead of disabling your iCloud account.
This would not have been a problem if you and your wife had different iCloud accounts. iCloud is a PERSONAL space, not intended to be a shared space. Apple strongly recommends not sharing iCloud accounts, except between one person's devices. You can still share content, calendars, photos and other items you want to share using family sharing: Family Sharing - Apple Support
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Feb 15, 2016 9:21 PMby tteulilo,terrible answer....suggesting a workaround instead of fixing the issue...why would you want to change your iPhone name? name of the iPhone is not the issue reported here...
I agree this is a design flaw, we should have the control to allow hotspot or not, currently we cannot by switching off the hotspot button. I have also reported to apple support so hopefully we will hear from them soon.
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Feb 16, 2016 4:23 AMby Meg St._Clair,tteulilo wrote:
terrible answer....suggesting a workaround instead of fixing the issue...why would you want to change your iPhone name? name of the iPhone is not the issue reported here...
I agree this is a design flaw, we should have the control to allow hotspot or not, currently we cannot by switching off the hotspot button. I have also reported to apple support so hopefully we will hear from them soon.
My answer had to do with a side question. 00terp seemed to think that a visible SSID meant people anyone who could see it could access their hotspot. I advised this is not the case. No one who is not sharing your iCloud account can access your personal Hotspot without the passcode. I added, just for the sake of completeness to that question but not because it's related to the original question that, if one doesn't want one's coworkers to know it's their phone, change the SSID. Some people don't care to broadcast their name to anyone with a wifi capable device. So, it's a perfectly good answer to the question that was asked.
I highly doubt it's a design flaw. It may be a design decision with which you disagree but that doesn't mean that Apple didn't think it out fairly carefully.
